Exercise and Movement in Eating Disorder Recovery: Is it Healthy?
When is movement medicine for people in eating disorder recovery?
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I have been walking my own disordered eating recovery path for many years, and a big part of healing was coming to understand what joyful embodied movement was.
I remember how I used to play spontaneously and care-free as a child, and then as I got older, movement became so warped, punishing and punitive as I become more enmeshed in diet culture and my eating disorder.
Before I dive into this topic of exercise and fitness, I want to acknowledge that I exist in a white, thin, able body, and this privilege means that I have not had direct experience with race, weight or body discrimination. I recognise that I do not know what it’s like to be in a body that is not supported by diet and fitness culture, and that I will do my best to listen to and learn from other people’s experiences.
my eating disorder and exercise addiction background
As a child, I was quite active, participating in ballet, netball, swimming and horse riding. I took ballet and horse riding competitively and felt the pressure to perform perfectly. F
rom a young age, I remember being told to suck in my tummy during ballet class and comparing my body to other girls in class. I then left the world of ballet because I felt it was dangerous for my mental health; it seems that at the age of 14 I had a sense that my already-fragile body image was not resilient enough to face the pressures of the dancing culture.
I then pursued horse riding and dove deeper into competitions, and realised that even amongst the horsey people, everyone had some kind of relationship with food and body, including the unspoken belief that one couldn’t be a fat horse rider. It was hard to escape.
By the time I got to 15, my eating disorder was full on. I was restricting my food and engaging in intense gym activities. I didn’t know back then but I was addicted to exercise. My dietician and therapist at the time would ban me from exercise when I lost weight. It would trigger and infuriate me. Exercise was my safety net; having it taken away from me was like having my whole (small) world unravel before me.
By 18, I went to an in-patient clinic, and I would still find ways to sneak in exercise by doing push ups and ab curls at night or in the corner of some empty room - little did I know there were camera everywhere so I got caught. It was awful to be caught exercising; I felt so ashamed and embarrassed.
Despite being caught and banned, I would still try fill every moment with exercise.
I couldn’t tell when enough was enough.
The exercise and the eating disorder was never enough, and similar to my weight, I could never be thin enough. My lifestyle reflected that same energy: I was driven, always busy, hard working, and based my worth on my productivity, my doing-doing schedule and being constantly active. Slowing down was a threat and could lead to rejection. I didn’t know what was enough and I wasn’t ever enough.
Then I found yoga - which became some form of bypassing. If I’m doing something spiritual, then surely I’m healed? This was my ego’s way of conveniently avoiding the problem that I was still addicted to exercise. And then I started teaching yoga; fitness was wrapped into my identity and career. I was known by students for teaching hardcore yoga asana/movement classes. There was a part of me who enjoyed being perceived as hardcore. It played into a very old narrative that I held onto from childhood: the story of being special. It was the old narrative of “dynamite comes in small packages” coming up the surface again. I so badly wanted to surprise, be different, be admired. I felt recognized for not being average for my age, ability or size. My size was wrapped with my identity and it fueled my ego. By being smaller than others yet just as strong as them, I created the story that I had some kind of superhuman strength which (I liked to think) people admired.
This false sense of pride was only covering up how low my self-worth was and how much pain I was in.
My eating disorder, exercise addiction, and body dysmorphia were reflections of unresolved self-esteem issues which I tried to manage by fixating on appearance for external validation. This is what diet culture is about: keeping us focused our bodies, weight and food - on the external – robbing us of our power, passions and purpose. And this is what eating disorders do for us too: keeping us fixated on our external appearance, weight and food instead of what is going on inside of us.
overexercise as a fight and flight response
The way I used exercise was a reflection of how exercise was a symptom of, and strategy to manage and process trauma.
What thoughts and feelings come up when you are unable to exercise? If you don’t exercise when you *should have*, what do you experience inside of your body?
Exercise can be a way to purge energy when things feel too close, too much, too loud, or too overwhelming. Whilst exercise can help us be in the present moment and get into the flow, for many of us, exercise can be used to avoid the present moment: It is a strategy employed by the autonomic nervous system (the nervous system that rules our flight/fight/freeze in response to danger) to get rid of a lot of excessive energy, or exercise can be used to try feel something, any sensation.
On the one hand, exercise can get rid of anxious energy, and it can also bring someone out of a more numb state. Either way, these are attempts to regulate; the nervous system is trying to bring the body down or up - and into homeostasis.
Sometimes we have never learnt how to slow down. Sometimes we were told to stop before we were ready. Sometimes a certain experience ended before we were ready. How does your body hold these memories of “I haven’t done enough” or “there isn’t enough for me?”. For many of us engaged in excessive exercise, slowing down is perceived as a threat by the nervous system.
Being unable to yield, slow down and pause shows up as: Binging because one cannot experience completion; restriction because one cannot finish completely; excessive exercise, hyper-vigilance; perfectionism; and over achieving.
Resting can feel like a threat and unsafe. So our nervous system tells us that in order to feel worthy and that we belong, we may have the story: “exercise is something I need to do often. If it feels difficult, I am weak. If I take breaks, I am lazy or lack discipline. If I can’t keep up with others, I am not good enough. If I am not as strong as I was, I need to fix it. If I don’t look like everyone else in this space, I don’t belong. If I don’t exercise, I’m not good enough, and when I exercise, it still doesn’t feel like enough.” Any of these sound familiar?
So excessive exercise becomes the symbol for the fear of yielding. And when you add the layer of diet culture and a good dose of hustle culture, you have a spicy soup of manic exercise that we see in fitness culture today.
the fanatic fitness culture
Perhaps you recognize this trap: you come across a new diet/cleanse/wellness plan, which promotes that you will become not just thinner and fitter but also happier, sexier, richer, more popular, and a better person. The sad truth is that in our culture today, weight loss can sometimes lead to attaining a higher status (weight stigma causes people in larger bodies to earn less money, have higher rates of depression, and social isolation than people in smaller bodies).
However, weight loss is temporary, and weight cycling puts people’s health at greater risk. And we know that people in larger bodies can and do have happy lives and successful careers without needing to shrink their bodies.
So the real problem isn’t body size, but the belief system that keeps people chasing weight loss in order to secure equal rights. The solution isn’t pursuing weight loss, but dismantling diet culture.
Diet culture and the health and wellness are not interested in your health or wellness, and here’s why:
Diet culture makes us believe that the stereotypical “fit” look is the only look, and those who fit that ideal are the only ones engaging in fitness and health right.
Fitness culture drills in the idea you have the deny or reward yourself food based on your workout.
Needing a modification for an exercise means you are less skilled.
Skipping workouts = you are are not committed enough to your goals.
Ableism is the foundation of the fitness industry that implies that those who fit the “fit ideal” are worth keeping, worth saving, and accepted, and anyone viewed as unfit are disposable, rejected, and should be left behind.
The more we try to attain these beliefs and ideals, the more our life slips from our grasp. Moving away from the homogenized fitness industry into one that is inclusive, creates spaces that are anti-diet, trauma-informed, compassionate, harm-reductionist, fat-affirming, accessible, anti-racist, and ethical. These spaces allow for people to say no; there are options in exercise classes to go at your pace, to take breaks, to lessen the resistance. This is a call to action for fitness and movement spaces to be more supportive to diverse bodies.
So how do we start to change this? Well the truth is, nobody knows you and your body better than you. Diet culture has made us believe that they know best, but really we do know, and finding our way back to hearing our intuition and body speak is possible.
The more we can be truthful with how we are feeling, the more authentic we can be with our movement choices.
When you become honest with where you are at, you may realise that exercise is taking up your creative energy and taking up a huge chunk of your life.
You may need to change movement activities that are not recognized by the eating disorder voice; you may need to investigate what joyful movement is for you; or you may need some time to rest from exercise. When we move from compulsive, guilt-based movement, our priorities shift – and that includes the people we hang out with.
In this process, make time to process any fears that come up related to letting go of a fitness community and connections; grieving the release of an fitness identity; and sitting in the unknown space where fitness used to occupy.
In an Ayahuasca ceremony in 2020, I received a download from the medicine that “I am a mover”. What I gauged from that insight was that whatever the circumstance to keep moving the energy. When things get tough, move the density. When things are confusing, move the energy to clear the pathways. When things are flowing, move with gratitude, ease and grace. I move from the inside-out.
Being able to shift and manage energy effectively, with resilience, compassion and clarity are part of the eating disorder recovery journey. The disordered eating behaviours are showing us how overwhelmed we are by the energy inside and around us, and so part of healing is learning how to resource to body so that it no longer needs to fight, run away, or shut down.
You can work with sacred plant medicines or psychedelics in helping you look at control patterns related to exercise, body, weight and food, as well as experiencing the felt sense and vibrational frequency of being completely free from the grips of exercise addiction.
Let us get real with our intentions around why are exercising.
Why would you want to move if weight loss, weight management, or manipulating body were no longer the goals?
What are you running away from? Is your body still holding survival energies from a past trauma and as such is still trying run away from something scary that hasn’t been resolved, processed, and released?
What are some intentions around moving your body that are unrelated to weight? Maybe you’re thinking about moving in nature, incorporating exercise into a work break, dancing to express yourself, or finding a more resonant community of movers who like to play.
What does nourishing exercise that contributes to your overall self-care look like? Is it possible to move for pleasure? Pleasure is essential for healing and liberation; and for many of us with eating disorders and exercise addiction pleasure, play, and desire are difficult things for us to allow.
Instead of focusing on the external, what makes you strong from the inside out? Focus on your inner strengths like vulnerability, authenticity, creativity, compassion, kindness, capacity, courage, and reliability - all of which have nothing to do with the body. Find ways to harness these beautiful qualities.
Give yourself time to question how and why exercise has served you through tough times, and what it wants to evolve into now. Eating disorder and exercise addiction recovery are inner journeys of the true self, a reclamation of one’s true essence and essential, unbreakable qualities.
Honour the rest, the pause, and the moments of stillness.